If you are lucky enough to find yourself in Atlanta the weekend of March 10-13th, The Society for Photographic Education’s 48th Annual National Conference, “Science, Poetry and the Photographic Image” will be in full swing. The conference will examine the union of the ideologies of scientists and poets in the context of photography with more than sixty presentations, discussions, and workshops by photographers, writers, educators, curators, historians, and professionals.

As a photographic educator, I regularly attend the West Coast conference, and from all the reports, the national conference is not to be missed. Even if you are not an educator, all interested in photography are welcome and it will be a weekend filled with lectures, seminars, and a chance to expand you photo relationships. Be sure to pursue the website for resources and calls for entry.

The conference will examine the union of the ideologies of scientists and poets in the context of photography with more than sixty presentations, discussions, and workshops by photographers, writers, educators, curators, historians, and professionals. “The vernacular of science and poetry are infused in the methods and work of nearly every photographer,” says Michael Marshall, SPE 2011 conference chair and associate professor of photography at the University of Georgia, in Athens. “This year’s programming will take us into the very foundations of our process, investigating how we engage our experiences, and the visual languages we use to express them.”

This year’s keynote speaker will be Abelardo Morell. Morell will take the audience through his photography career from early picture-making in New York City after his exile from Cuba, to his days at home as a new father photographing his children and finding beauty in everyday objects. It will be an overarching presentation of some of the more recognizable pictures, as well as some lesser-known images from his time photographing in museums, libraries, and landscapes around the world. His work has been collected and shown in many galleries, institutions, and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York, among many others.

Other major presenters will include Catherine Wagner, presenting “Art & Science: Investigating Matter,” and Carolyn Guertin, presenting “Freeze Frame: Image, Space-Time, Text” Wagner is a keen observer of the built environment, examining institutions of learning and knowledge, such as art museums and science labs, as well as the ways we construct our cultural identity. Guertin is a cyber feminist, photographer, and digital media scholar who specializes in digital narrative. She is currently working on a book called Digital Prohibition: The Death of the Author, The Rise of the Multitude.

SPE, which will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary in 2013 and just launched a new, state-of-the-art website, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a broader understanding of photography in all its forms. The national conference is the centerpiece of SPE’s yearly programming and features a Curator Portfolio Walkthrough, one-on-one portfolio critiques and sessions, informal portfolio sharing, Adobe demonstrations, a print raffle, silent auction, film festival, reception, dance party and an exhibits fair, featuring over sixty corporate exhibitors showing the latest equipment and processes, hotoff-
the-press books, and other resources for lens-based artists. The exhibits fair is free and open to the public.
For more information and to register, please visit the SPE website.